Kim Bailey
Grand National-winning trainer
I think the Grand National is the one race that it would work for. I’d be very much in favour because if something isn’t done, the race will have lost its appeal within two years.
It would have to be very selective – no more than half a dozen races – but I think that if you win the Welsh National, the Scottish National, the Irish National or the Midlands National, and let’s say the Peter Marsh or the Grand National Trial at Haydock, you ought to be automatically eligible to run at Aintree. Ten years or so ago you’d have got in the National on merit anyway if you’d won one of those, and it’s only because of the changed nature of the race and the reduced field size that most winners of those races wouldn’t make it now.
Nowadays the fences are so small that people realise that almost anything can jump them, and the prize-money is so good at last that it’s become almost like a Grade 1 chase, albeit on limited handicap terms, and so liable to be dominated by Gold Cup types from just a couple of stables.
While it’s great that trainers want to aim the best horses in the country at the race, the opportunity needs to be there for proper Grand National types to compete too, even if it
means taking a few higher rated horses out of the race. ‘Win and you’re in’ status for Aintree would also be a very attractive carrot for those racecourses putting on the races to be able to offer.
The prime example this year of a horse who should be running but has no chance of getting in is Sara Bradstock’s Mr Vango, who won the Peter Marsh. He’s a proper National type and on soft ground he’d be just the horse for the race. He’d have much wider public appeal too than most of those Gold Cup horses.
Janet Davies
Jumps owner with Evan Williams
I agree that interest in the Grand National and some other big races would benefit from more diversity among the owners and trainers with runners than we are often seeing nowadays, but I don’t think that ‘win and you’re in’ races are the answer.
If I was lucky enough to win a Welsh National with a horse rated 130 or 135 and was guaranteed a place in the Grand National field that way, then I would be very embarrassed about running at Aintree against horses rated 150 or whatever with no realistic chance of winning, and at the same time knowing that we had kept another horse who had earned his place through his rating out of the race.
I think that in races like the Grand National and all those Grade 1 races, you’ve got to be entitled to be there on your merits.
Some people have suggested placing a limit of maybe five runners on owners and trainers in races like the Grand National as another way of giving a wider range of people a chance to be involved, but it wouldn’t be too difficult to find ways around that and, again, I think if a horse has earned his place in a race through his rating, then he should be allowed to run.
Sara Bradstock
Trainer of 143-rated staying chaser Mr Vango
I think it’s extraordinary that a horse can be the best of the British in last year’s National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham, win the Devon National by 60 lengths, and this season win the London National and the Peter Marsh yet be nowhere near getting into the Grand National. It’s a bit of a mockery of what the Grand National ought to be all about.
We all know Mr Vango needs soft ground, which they probably won’t get at Aintree, but it does happen now and again and on proper soft ground he’d have a real chance – and a much better one than many of those that are guaranteed a place ahead of him.
If all those horses in the 150s and upwards had form in the last six months to justify those ratings, I wouldn’t mind so much them getting in ahead of Mr Vango, but it seems a bit crazy that he’s done what he’s done and isn’t anywhere near getting in. I think it’s a shame, not just for us but for the race itself that horses with a bit of back form in Gold Cups and so on are getting in ahead of proper Grand National types.
‘Win and you’re in’ races ought to help, but I also think it’s not good for the race that one owner, and maybe one or two trainers, can monopolise it. I don’t know how it could be done, and it wouldn’t be popular with some, but surely a limit of three or four runners for any one stable or any one owner ought to be more than enough.
Raymond Anderson Green
Owner of more than 500 winners
It’s a definite yes from me. Nowadays you have to be 145-plus to have a chance of getting a run and a series of ‘win and you’re in’ races would add some excitement and give a few more owners and trainers a chance which they no longer have.
It would allow one or two progressive types with slightly lower ratings a chance to get a run, and also some of those old-fashioned staying chasers that the Grand National used to be all about. It would add a bit of interest for the wider owning fraternity, and also I think for the wider public. It would also make the qualifying races more competitive too – and I’m thinking here of races like the Welsh National, Eider Chase, National Hunt Chase at Cheltenham and Edinburgh National at Musselburgh, which is now 0-150.
My best-ever horse, Sparky Gayle, who won the Cathcart, ran in the Grand National in 2000 and was first past the post, but unfortunately poor Brian Storey had been knocked out of the saddle at the second fence by a horse belonging to my good friend Trevor Hemmings. Even on his peak rating, Sparky Gayle would probably only just scrape into a modern Grand National.
As a Scotsman, my priority was always to try to win the Scottish National, and Merigo won it twice. He also won an Eider Chase, so in many ways he would have been an ideal Grand National type if we’d wanted to go that way, but his best rating of 142 probably wouldn’t get him close to a run at Aintree this year.
